
<oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:title>WHO ONLINE DATES? PERSON VARIABLE PREDICTORS OF ONLINE DATING</dc:title>
  <dc:creator>Coppersmith, Jody</dc:creator>
  <dc:description>Due to social and technological changes, an increasing number of people are turning to online dating to seek romantic partners. People who engage in online dating were initially thought to be socially anxious, shy individuals who became distressed in face-to-face interactions and used the Internet to compensate for their social challenges (McKenna &amp; Bargh, 2000). However, more recent research has suggested this may no longer be the case (Valkenburg and Peters, 2007). The psychological literature has begun to address a wide range of person variables that may be related to online dating, but given the rapidly changing nature of the Internet, there is limited amount of understanding of the characteristics and motivations of individuals who engage in online dating. This study investigated the relationship between online dating and age, gender, fear of negative evaluation, introversion, perceived social support, general self-efficacy, and success finding dates face-to-face. Additionally, the belief that the online world reflects the offline world was assessed by examining the relationship between success finding dates face-to-faces and success finding dates online. The sample consisted of 110 participants: 55 participants who endorsed online dating and 55 individuals who did not endorse online dating. Results revealed that significant differences existed between online daters and non-online daters for age, success finding dates face-to-face, and perceived social support. However, only age and success finding dates face-to-face were significant predictors of who online dates. There was not a significant correlation between success findings dates face-to-face and success finding dates online. Overall, there appear to be limited differences in person characteristics of online daters and non-online daters. Online daters did not differ from non-online daters in social characteristics, one way or the other, as prior research has indicated. Rather, people of all types appear to be online dating. Despite the limitations of this study, these findings add to the growing online dating literature and support the case for an overall broad influence of technology on individuals’ lives, relationship formation, and relationship maintenance.</dc:description>
  <dc:description>M.S. in Psychology, May 2012</dc:description>
  <dc:contributor>Mitchell, M. Ellen</dc:contributor>
  <dc:date>2012-04-23</dc:date>
  <dc:date>2012-05</dc:date>
  <dc:type>Thesis</dc:type>
  <dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
  <dc:identifier>islandora:7394</dc:identifier>
  <dc:identifier>http://hdl.handle.net/10560/2834</dc:identifier>
  <dc:source>PSYCH / Institute of Psychology</dc:source>
  <dc:source>Illinois Institute of Technology</dc:source>
  <dc:language>en</dc:language>
  <dc:rights>In Copyright</dc:rights>
  <dc:rights>http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/</dc:rights>
  <dc:rights>Restricted Access</dc:rights>
</oai_dc:dc>